


Andy's wardrobe and the Lone Orange Shirt

by thek9kid



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy needs time and space to heal, Betrayal, Clothing, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sunglasses, The Google, gaggle, matching clothing, only owns black pants and boots, rock paper scissors, twinsies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25984531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thek9kid/pseuds/thek9kid
Summary: Andy never took this long to decide what to wear in her life, but now she stood with a grey tank top in one hand and an orange shirt with a yellow daisy on it, in the other. Her hands shook.OR"What the hell is a Twinsies?" Andy asked."Beats me we'll have to ask The Google," Booker shrugged.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman
Comments: 8
Kudos: 127





	Andy's wardrobe and the Lone Orange Shirt

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hi! So this started as me wanting to write something a little goofy about Andy and Booker’s relationship, but then the angst crept in, and I think I like it more now. I hope you like it too. Enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the Old Guard Characters.

Andy stared at her closet in the Berlin safe house, one of the very few places she still had clothes of this century. She knew she wouldn’t have taken so long to decide what to wear before, a pair of black jeans, a grey or black shirt or tank top, and a leather/black or grey jacket with her black combat boots. Easy simple and only took her a few minutes to dress and lace-up her boots. She hadn’t changed her style in three decades, although her jeans had become tighter in recent years. 

But now, she eyed the single spot of color in her closet, an orange shirt with a yellow daisy on it bought as a gag gift from Nicky and Joe one Christmas morning in the early 2000s, as a solution to her and Booker’s recent wardrobe predicament. She knew there was a button-down shirt that looked like it was indiscriminately splattered with paint of every color in the rainbow, across the hall in Booker’s old room.

~

It had all started on an innocent day in 1999 Belarus, Andy and Booker had gone out to buy breakfast for themselves and the boys, no one wanted to cook after the grueling three-month mission they had just finished. As they walked down the street to Booker’s favorite bakery, hoping it was still open, a gaggle of teenage girls walked past them, one of the girls stopped, lowered her huge pink sunglasses, scanned them and grinned, “OMG, you two are so cute!”

Andy blinked behind her sunglasses and looked at Booker, who was mouthing cute with a confused quirk of his eyebrow.

“You’re like an action movie couple with you’re twinsies monochromatic clothes, even down to the sunglasses!” the girl gushed before her friends tugged her away, chattering about buying the cutest new shoes in the city and how Jared would totally fall in love with Jan the moment he saw her in them.

The two immortals, shuddering at the thought of being thought of as a couple, stood still for a few moments. 

“What just happened?” Andy asked, and Booker shrugged. “What the hell is a twinsies?”

“Beats me, we’ll have to ask The Google,” Booker said before they continued to the Bakery.

Later back at the safe house, Booker pulled out his laptop at the breakfast table while munching on a bear claw, and they consulted The Google.

“Ok, here we go,” Booker said, and Andy leaned over his shoulder. She had two pastries, one in each hand, she licked the frosting off one and the powered sugar off another. “So a Twinsies is “a term that refers to two people who have a trait or experience in common. It also describes when two people say or think the same thing at the same time. Twinsies is often seen when a person posts a side-by-side picture of two friends who are dressed alike.”

Booker leaned his head up to look at her, and well yeah, they had experiences and traits in common. 

“I guess we are wearing the same kind of leather jackets,” Andy observed as she brushed pastry crumbs off the shoulder of said jacket.

“The same shirt,” Joe said from across the room, where he was sketching something in his notebook. Andy rounded the table, and sure enough, they were both wearing grey shirts. She took a seat and put her half-eaten pastries on a plate.

“The same jeans,” Nicky shouted from the bathroom. Andy and Booker frowned at each other and ducked under the table, yep same black jeans, although Andy’s were tighter than Booker’s.

“How did you even-” Booker turned in his chair as he shouted to Nicky.

“You’ve been wearing matching jeans for a few years now, guys,” Nicky shouted back. Andy tilted her head, wondering if she even owned a pair of pants that were not black, huh, no, she didn’t. 

Joe stood and sat down at the table, snatching another pastry, “I’m pretty sure you’re wearing the same boots and socks too.”

Andy stared at Booker for a second before they both hefted a leg above the table and yep, same black combat boots with black socks.

“And you have the same sunglasses,” Nicky said as he sat down next to Joe and stole his pastry before he could take a bite.

“OMG, we are twinsies!” Booker exclaimed with a smirk.

“If you ever say that again, I will kill you,” Andy deadpanned. “Go change, I do not want to be,” she shuddered before she said the word, “twinsies, with you. We at least have to be wearing different shades of grey.”

“Why do I have to change? Why don’t you go change?” Booker whined, eyeing the last bear claw in the box, she smirked knowing he knew what her plan was.

“Cause I’m older than you.” 

“You’re older than everyone on earth,” he challenged. Nicky choked on his bite of stolen pastry.

She smirked and leaned closer to him, “rock, paper, scissors?” 

His eyes narrowed, but he accepted and immediately lost, his paper to her scissors. “Why do you always win!?” Booker moaned as he got up.

“You have a tell.”

“In rock paper scissors!?” Booker exclaimed as he walked away. Andy laughed as she reached for the pastry, but Booker ran back, snatched the snack, took a big bite, and then ran up the stairs. 

He came back down, wearing a darker grey shirt and a belt buckle with a paw print on it, and showed off his black and purple polka dot socks with a goofy grin.

Life continued like that, they would wake up in the morning, get dressed, come together in the kitchen of whatever safe house they were in, groan seeing the same clothes on their best friend, play rock paper scissors, and Booker would have to change.

“You know, you could avoid all of this and wear actual colors,” Joe said one morning, reading a newspaper.

Booker and Andy shuddered in unison at the thought, Book now wearing a black shirt instead of a grey one. 

One surprising morning as Booker and Andy faced off in their daily game of rock paper scissors, Booker actually won, throwing Andy for a loop as he ran a victory lap around the house, and Andy changed from a black jacket to a grey one for the first time.

On The Christmas of 2004, Andy and Booker debated burning the eyesores of colored fabric masquerading as shirts. Still, as they were gifts from Joe and Nicky, they couldn’t bring themselves to do so and wore them for exactly thirty minutes at dinner that night and then threw them into the closet never to see the light of day.

~

Now Andy knew when she went down to the kitchen, there would be no good-natured groan and a fair game of rock paper scissors before one of them went to change. 

She held the grey tank top she was planning on wearing with shaking hands and reached for the orange shirt. Andy held both of them for a long time when she looked in the mirror her eyes were sparkling with tears, and she bit her lip to keep it from trembling. 

She dropped both shirts to the ground and sat against her headboard, knees brought up to her chest, she leaned her head on her knees and let the tears fall into her black sleep pants.

She gave herself time, ignoring the repeated knock on the door from Nile, Nicky, and Joe. An hour later, she felt a little better and hauled herself to her feet, pulling out a camo green tanktop she rarely wore, black jeans, and her boots. She still didn’t own any non-black pants or boots. She went down and sat with her family, they asked what was wrong, but she just smiled and shook her head, she didn’t want to talk about it right then. 

When Nile said she wanted to go shopping, that she was tired of wearing the same three outfits over and over again, Andy went with her. Maybe she did need a change. At least for a while, until looking at her closet, didn’t make her cry. 

Andy needed time; she recognized that, but she knew she didn’t have as much time as previously thought, as much as Nile, Joe, and Nicky have.

But she needed distance and time away from Booker to allow herself and her family to heal, to feel sad and broken, to feel safe, to be angry and then eventually let that anger go, to be able to forgive someday.

Andy wouldn’t last 100 years, she wouldn’t be alive in 100 years, and she wanted to see Booker again for a while before she died. Maybe they would go on a senior cruise during her last few years, perhaps alone if the others needed more time, or together if they were ready.

Right now, though, she would go shopping with Nile, and maybe she would buy a color or two.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, Hi! What did you guys think? Did you like it? I also wanted to write something about Andy and her pain and hurt that came from Booker’s betrayal, so I just mushed the two ideas together. I don’t think she’s angry anymore; I think her anger dissipated when Booker told her why he did it because, in some ways, she understood. But that doesn’t mean she’s forgiven him yet, it doesn’t mean she’s not hurt, and sad, it doesn’t mean she can’t grieve the loss of her best friend, of her Twinsies. It also doesn’t mean she can’t move on and make new traditions with Nile, Nicky, and Joe, while also leaving her heart open for a someday with Booker. 
> 
> I got the ideas for this story from a Tumblr post that I cannot find anymore. :( Its really hard to search for stuff on that site.
> 
> I got the Twinsies definition directly from Google, and the rock paper scissors idea came from Leverage. 
> 
> And yes a group of teenage girls is called a Gaggle. Invented by me, in this fic. I did actually google it but an Adolescent Clique just didn’t have the same ring or alliteration to it.
> 
> I know Booker’s supposedly the “best” with technology compared to the three ancient immortals, but he’s still 200 or so years old, and I just think he would talk like a Grandpa and say stuff like The Google. He can hack and research and be generally computer savvy, but still talk like an old man about it.


End file.
